A Terrorist, a Bomb, and an Elevator
by HorsesRMyAngels
Summary: Tony and Ziva are stuck in the elevator post 9x24, and they have some time to talk. Tony gets the chance to cross Number 26 off of his bucket list. Gibbs seeks revenge on Harper Dearing.
1. Chapter 1

**I know there are a million of these but I really just wanted to write one for the heck of it. Also I've had this idea since the finale so I just needed to write it down. Oneshot for now, though I may add a second chapter. I'll see how this one does.**

**Disclaimer: If I owned NCIS I'd be writing scripts, not fanfiction.**

_Bang!_

The entire building, including the elevator containing the two federal agents, shook as the force of the explosion collided with it. Ziva fell into Tony as she lost her balance, and they clung to each other tightly as they fell to the floor of the elevator. The lights flickered and then went out as the building lost power, causing the elevator to cease its descent.

Then, everything was quiet. No sounds except the distant trill of sirens and the two NCIS agents' labored breathing. Debris from the ceiling coated the elevator. Thankfully, it was just the ceiling tiles and dust.

* * *

Ziva slowly forces herself to open her eyes. Her whole body shakes in fear. Other than that, she is fine physically, though she can feel a deep scratch on the side of her face where a ceiling tile had fallen on her as it plummeted to the floor.

"Tony?" she whispers into the fabric of his shirt. She can feel him breathing under her, thankfully, and knows he is okay. Suddenly, a high pitched groan comes from her partner's lips. "Tony?" she asks again, worriedly, lifting her head from it's place huddled between his neck and shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he answers. "Just hit my head on the damn door when I fell. What about you?"

"I'm fine. Now, about your head…"

"I'm alright, Ziva," he reassures her. She trusts him not to lie to her, he never has (except that one time, but that's gone with the past), however she also knows he'd put her safety before his; he'd done it before, and in much more dire circumstances. She knows him. She knows him so well, in fact, that she's surprised he's been so quiet.

"What?" she says, chuckling, "No jokes?"

"Jokes?" he asks confusedly. "Why would I joke at a time like this?" She detects a hint of sarcasm.

"Because you're Tony DiNozzo," she replies, "and last time we were, huh, well, like _this_, you said-"

"I know what I said," he cuts her off. "It's just that this isn't exactly the time or the place for jokes."

She cocks her head to the side.

"Well, that is…awfully mature of you, Tony." He shrugs.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures." Her eyes fall away from his as what he has said registers. These are certainly desperate times. Tony notices tears begin to pool in her eyes, but she blinks them away a second later. Tough ex-Mossad assassins don't cry, at least most of the time.

"Hey," he murmurs, taking the hand that had been clutching her's the entire time and whiping a strand of hair that had come lose from her ponytail away from her face. He notices the cut on her face and reminds himself to make sure she gets that cleaned up later. "Everything's going to be okay."

"You don't know that." She sighs, her breath shaky as she tries to pull herself together. Ziva slowly begins to shift herself off of Tony's chest, and he pulls himself up into a sitting position next to her, trying not to wince at the pain this causes his injured head, but keeping his arm still snugly wrapped around her waist. "For every monster we put away, a worse one steps up to take his or her place."

"You can't think like that. Not in this line of work. We've been through this before," Tony whispers, recalling the night Mike Franks had died. "You have to think positive."

"We could've died, Tony," she retorts, her voice quivering. "Gibbs and McGee and Abby…oh…" she trails off. When she pulls herself back together as best she can, she looks up at him. "We could've died, Tony," she repeats forlornly. He sighs.

"Yeah, about that. Why didn't you leave when I told you to? It wasn't safe; you should've gone without me, Ziva."

"I couldn't go without you, Tony," she replies softly.

"You could've been killed. Why didn't you go?" he insists, his voice hard.

"Because you're my partner!" she shouts forcefully. "Because you've always been my friend," she continues, her voice softening. "Because I've got your back," she whispers, tears forming faster than she can blink or wipe them away. "Because I-" She cuts herself off, and simply stares up at him. Their eyes lock, and they stay silent for well over a minute, their eyes refusing to shut up. Tony notices that same strand of hair on her face, and pushes it back behind her ear, his gaze never breaking from her's. And suddenly, the realization that it's now or never hits them both.

"I love you," they whisper at the same exact time. They say nothing else as these words which they have said sink in. Tony is the first to break the silence by chuckling as he leans forward and kisses Ziva. She leans into him, wraps her arms around him, and kisses him back, the tears which she had held back shamelessly trickling down her cheek. When they finally break apart, they smile at each other, smiling for perhaps the first time all day.

"Well, guess I can cross off Number 26," Tony says lightly.

"Number 26?" Ziva asks, puzzled. Tony takes a folded piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and waves it in the air.

"Number 26: Tell her," he explains. Ziva remembers; Tony's bucket list.

"That was about me, wasn't it? You wanted to tell me…how you felt, before you…die." Tony nods.

"Figure now's as good a time as any. And I had to tell you."

"Tony…What about Gibbs? Rule Number 12, never…" she fades off, hearing something that sounds like a voice coming from outside the doors.

"Hello? Hey! Anybody in here?"

"Gibbs," they both say.

"Help!" Ziva cries.

"Boss! In here! We're in the elevator!" Tony shouts.

"DiNozzo? David? Is that you?" Gibbs calls.

"Yes!" they yell in unison. Seconds later, the doors are pried open ever so slightly, letting in a ray of soft grey light. They're on the second floor of the NCIS headquarters building.

"You two idiots alright in there?" Gibbs calls worriedly.

"We're fine. Just a few scrapes and bruises," Tony replies. Ziva's about to inquire about the other members of their team, their friends, when Gibbs tells them to hold on a second and dashes out of sight. He returns less than a minute later with a crowbar and a rescue worker.

"Let's see if we can pry one of these doors open," he says to the other man. Sure enough, the two men slowly coax the doors open wide enough that a person can fit through. There's a bit of a step up as the elevator was slightly below the floor when the power went out.

"Okay, try and fit through here," Gibbs calls into the elevator. Ziva pushes Tony towards the door.

"Go," she says. He grabs her arm.

"Nope. I'm the Senior Field Agent here; you're going first." Her eyes plead with him, but he's not giving up. She finally sighs in defeat.

"You're never going to let this Senior Field Agent thing go, are you."

"Not as long as I'm still kicking, sweet cheeks," he answers, giving her his ever charming DiNozzo grin. Ziva squeezes through the space and pulls herself up and out of the elevator. Tony follows behind her, and begins to climb out just as the backup backup generator comes on, and the doors start to close and the elevator prepares to renew it's descent.

Scenes and words flash before Ziva's eyes in a millisecond.

_"Having phone sex?"_

_"Todah." "Prego."_

_"Sweet cheeks."_

_"I want a divorce."_

_"You read my report?" "I memorized it!"_

_"Couldn't live without you, I guess."_

_"That you had my back. That you have always had my back."_

_"Do you really consider me to be in your life?"_

_"I love you."_

She thinks back to the words she had uttered minutes before. _"You wanted to tell me…how you felt, before you…die."_ Had she foreshadowed his death?

But less than a second later, in the nick of time, Tony hauls himself out of the elevator and leaps onto the floor just as the doors close.

"Well, that was close," Tony says breathlessly, sitting on the floor next to Ziva and Gibbs. He turns and sees Ziva's worried eyes trained on his face. He smiles sadly at her, trying to reassure her that everything's going to be okay from now on. Gibbs doesn't notice.

"What were you two idiots doing in an elevator?" he shouts. "That has got to be the stupidest-"

"Screw Rule Number 12," Tony whispers, taking Ziva in his arms. "I'm not living with any more regrets." And then he kisses her as Gibbs stares at them, his jaw practically on the ground. As the shock wears off, he closes his mouth and smiles ever so slightly. He'd always known there was something going on with those two. You couldn't miss it.

"Hey! Over here! I've got somebody!" the rescue worker Gibbs had borrowed to open the elevator calls. The three federal agents look up at the man. They get up and make their way over to where he stands, recognizing their desks in the squadroom. Ziva draws in a sharp breath when she sees the bleeding face.

"Oh my god," Tony says, shocked.

"McGee," Gibbs murmurs.

The rescue worker places two fingers on McGee's neck.

"I've got a pulse!"


	2. Chapter 2

**So, this was originally going to be two chapters, but I've decided to make it four. Also, a big thank you to everyone who reviewed and favorited this! **

**Disclaimer: I obviously don't own NCIS. Do I really need to say it again?**

**Chapter 2**

"DiNozzo, they're taking him to the George Washington University Hospital," Gibbs calls over to his Senior Field Agent as Mcgee is loaded into an ambulance. "As soon as the EMTs are done with you two, you know where to go."

"Got it, Boss," Tony replies, glancing over at Ziva, who is having the cut on her face cleaned out by a paramedic. Gibbs nods to him, and then takes a shell shocked Abby by the arm and leads her to his car, ready to follow the ambulance to the hospital. He's worried about her, since she hasn't said a word since calling out Mcgee's name after he was brought out of the building, burned and bleeding, on a stretcher.

The first responders had been alarmed when they'd first heard Tony had hit his head. Thankfully, no concussion this time. He's had enough of them to last a lifetime. Anyways, as soon as they are certain he hasn't sustained any brain trauma, and Ziva's cut has been cared for, the two agents are released from medical care.

As Tony begins to walk over to the parking lot where he'd parked his car that morning, Ziva catches his arm and stops him.

"We need to stay here to help. You know, do our jobs for once, since we apparently aren't good enough at them to catch a terrorist as old as my father before he blows up half the Navy Yard," she says dryly. Tony shakes his head.

"Gibbs' orders," he replies. "He wants us to meet them at the hospital." He hooks his arm through hers as they walk to his car.

"Crap," he says as he searches his pockets. "Left my keys in the building." He begins to think his day can't get any worse when he hears the jingling of keys and looks up to see Ziva holding hers.

"I will drive."

Oh no. The worst possible words that could ever come out of Ziva David's mouth. He's about to protest when he realizes that he doesn't have a choice, and resigns himself to his fate.

"I thought I would die in that building, compliments of Harper Dearing," he says as they climb into Ziva's car, "but now it seems I'm going to die in a fiery car crash at the hands of my own partner."

"Relax, Tony. I have not even gotten a speeding ticket in about two months," she informs him as she pulls out of the Navy Yard and heads for the hospital.

"Oh, well that's comforting," Tony sighs as he grips his chair and checks the seatbelt.

"Gibbs is going to kill us anyways if we don't die in this car."

"Why would Gibbs kill us?" Ziva asks.

"Well, my dear ninja, we did just do the equivalent of sticking our middle fingers up at his rules right in front of him," he answers.

"Oh," Ziva says weakly, the memory coming back to her. "Well, then," she continues, "if he does kill us, at least we will have died for a good cause." Tony laughs.

"Good to know you think so," he says as they pull up to the hospital and Ziva stops the car. He says a silent prayer of thanks to whatever god was looking out for him.

"So, what now?" Ziva asks after she cuts the engine.

"Well, typically one gets out of the car and goes into the building…"

"I am not talking about _that_, Tony."

"I know," he says with a sigh. "But in response to your question, I have absolutely no clue. Suppose I never really expected it to happen like this."

"What didn't you expect to happen like this?"

"Telling you."

"Oh." She pauses. "How did you expect it to happen?"

"Not sure. But I'm positive it didn't involve almost getting blown up by a terrorist, or having no clue what else to say to you afterwards."

She laughs. "The one time Anthony DiNozzo is at a loss for words."

"Yeah, well…this isn't something I take lightly."

Ziva smiles softly at him and takes his hand.

"Well that is a start," she begins.

"I really do care about you, Ziva. You know I wouldn't take this lightly. The thing is, I can't come up with a scenario in which I don't completely screw this up. And I don't want to screw this up."

"You won't, Tony," she assures him. "If you want this…then it will all work out. Everything happens for a reason, that is the saying, yes?" Tony chuckles.

"For once, yes, that is the saying." Ziva leans her head on his shoulder and they sit in the car for a few more minutes.

"I never would have thought, when I walked into NCIS seven years ago, that this would be possible," Ziva continues. "That I would be alive, for one thing. And also that I would have fallen in love with you." She swallows. "When I was in Somalia…I thought about you. All of you; Gibbs, Abby, Mcgee, Ducky, and everyone else at NCIS. But mostly I thought about you, Tony."

"Really? Continue. Tell me more about how I occupied every waking hour of your thoughts," Tony says jokingly, grinning at her.

"Tony," she warns.

"Sorry." He knows how much it pains her to talk about that summer. Now isn't the time to delve into those memories, much less joke about them.

"I used to think about how much I trusted you, how much I depended on you, even though I'd sworn not to depend on anyone but myself. I couldn't trust my father, or my brother…but I could trust you. I should've trusted you. And that's when I realized that I loved you." Tony smiles and presses a kiss to the top of her head.

"When I thought you were dead, I lost it. I couldn't focus on work, on anything. I used to drink, a lot. And when I thought I'd never see you again, that you were gone for good…that was when I knew that I'd loved you," he whispers into her hair.

They sit quietly for a moment, her head on his shoulder and his arm around hers.

"We should go in and see Tim," Tony says after a while. Ziva nods.

"He will probably be in surgery," she says as they get out of the car and walk into the hospital, holding hands. Sure enough, when they ask a nurse at the front desk, she tells them that Timothy Mcgee is still in emergency surgery.

Gibbs and Abby are sitting in the chairs closest to the doors of the waiting room when Tony and Ziva walk in, still holding hands. Abby, who has visibly been crying, eyes them warily, and they assume that Gibbs has mentioned _them_ to her. They silently slide into the two chairs next to their coworkers, their family. There is one empty chair at the end of the row. It's just too coincidental. But Gibbs doesn't believe in coincidences.

Gibbs doesn't greet them.

"Ducky had a heart attack this afternoon," Gibbs says flatly, staring at the wall. "I spoke with Jimmy Palmer a few minutes ago. He's delayed his wedding. Ducky's alive, but he's in bad shape." Before any of them can say a word, he gets up and walks out of the room.

Tony watches him leave. He hasn't seen Gibbs this distraught since Jenny Shepard died. He can't wrap his mind around it. Ducky? A heart attack? Dr. Mallard was one of the healthiest, most energetic people Tony knew. It didn't make sense. None of this made sense.

Tony looks over at Abby, expecting her to be a complete mess. Surprisingly, she isn't crying, though from her smudged makeup he can tell that she had been. Gibbs must have told her earlier. She just stares at the tissue in her hands and shakes her head.

"Why do these things always happen to such good people, Tony?" Abby whispers.

"If I knew, Abby, I'd tell you." And in the stillness that ensues, he feels the warm body in the chair on the other side of him shaking. He turns to his partner, only to see her shaking uncontrollably, arms wrapped around her chest as if she is literally holding herself together, large tears pouring down her face.

Of all of them, Ziva was the last one any member of the team would expect to have a nervous breakdown today. But when one considers everything she's been through, everything she's kept inside, it makes a lot of sense that when this new world she'd become part of, this new life she'd built for herself, fell apart, so would she.

Tony reaches over and takes her in his arms, pulling her towards him. She burries her face in his shirt as she sobs uncontrollably.

"Shhh, Ziva. It'll be okay. Everything will be fine," he whispers. But she doesn't stop crying. Not even when Abby comes over and sits next to her, and begins rubbing her back, do the sobs and the shaking dissipate. She clings to Tony with all her strength, as if any second he too might be ripped away.

A nurse notices them and walks over, lines of concern on her face.

"Excuse me, sir? Is she okay?" the nurse asks, gesturing to Ziva, who is having a full out emotional breakdown at this point.

"She'll be fine," Tony answers.

"Are you sure? Would you like me to have someone from psychiatric come to talk to her?"

"She'll be fine," he repeats. "She's just going through a lot. If she needs, we have someone she can talk to." His thoughts flash back to Ducky, the team's on call "shrink", the one person they could go to if they need to talk about things they can't talk to anyone else about. Would he still be around at the end of this, to help them through? He hopes with every fiber of his being that he will. The nurse, seeing that she's not going to get anywhere here, walks back to her desk, still keeping an eye on the inconsolable woman sitting in the back of the waiting room in the arms of a man who obviously means a lot to her.

Just then, Gibbs walks back in, carrying a cardboard box with what appears to be Mcgee's personal effects. He raises an eyebrow at Tony when he sees Ziva, but Tony just shakes his head. Gibbs is about to say something to comfort his agent, his daughter, when a nurse walks out of the operating room.

"Relatives of Timothy Mcgee?" she calls. The whole team looks up; even Ziva manages to quiet her sobs and pull her face out of Tony's chest.

The only sound in the room is that of four hearts pounding.


	3. Chapter 3

**The third out of four chapters. Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to read and review this!**

**Disclaimer: Does anyone here actually think I own NCIS? Nobody? Good. **

**Chapter 3**

There are too many tubes and wires. There are too many beeping machines. He seems more machine than man, almost.

"McRobot," Tony whispers under his breath, reverting back to his jokes, because that is what he does. Tony DiNozzo, the proverbial man behind the mask. How could he help it when Timothy Mcgee, his partner, heck, maybe he even thought of him as his brother sometimes, was just lying there, burnt and bruised and broken?

Abby is the first into the room. She lets go of Gibbs' hand and rushes to Mcgee's bedside.

"Tim," she cries, gingerly taking his hand. It's a heartbreaking scene; the happiest goth in the world kneeling beside the most badass computer nerd there ever was, crying.

"Any idea when he's going to wake up?" Gibbs asks the doctor. The man shrugs.

"Will he wake up?" a small voice whispers. The whole room stares at Abby. The doctor searches for comforting words that won't get her hopes too high.

"We hope," he finally manages.

_Hope_, Ziva thinks. _That is the word, is it not?_ It seems all they have left is hope. And she knows how far hope goes.

Abby is praying. Gibbs sits next to her in an uncomfortable hospital chair and places a large, calloused hand upon her shaking, sobbing shoulder. Two of his three best agents stand silently by the door; the other lies unconscious in a hospital bed.

They've been through hell and back, all of them. It's like the world can't help but screw them over, time and time again.

_There is always another monster._

But Gibbs isn't one to wallow in self pity. Gibbs is a man of action. The few men who screwed with his family had ended up dead, a bullet through their brains. Pedro Hernandez, Ari, Saleem… Harper Dearing certainly wouldn't receive anything nearly as generous.

He gets up and walks over to Tony and Ziva. He's still not all too happy with them at the moment; it's a combination of their stupidity exemplified in their taking an elevator during a bomb threat and the fact that they're currently breaking his rules. However, he can sympathize with them. He and Jenny had certainly broken that rule. And Jenny is dead. The only woman after Shannon who he might have actually been happy with…he couldn't blame them for not wanting to live with regrets. But that didn't mean he was letting them off easy.

"DiNozzo, David," he says, handing them a flash drive, "I found this…whatever you call it, computer stick thingy, with Mcgee's things. The Director saw him putting the case information on it before he left."

"He was supposed to leave the building," Tony says harshly. "He thought this was more important?"

"He knew that if we lost this, we'd lose our whole case against Dearing," Ziva cuts in.

Tony shakes his head sadly.

"Oh Mcgee," he says. He stares blankly at his partner in the bed. He remembers all the times he'd called him 'Probie'. But today, Mcgee had shown that he wasn't just a probie. He's a great agent.

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs shouted, slapping Tony in the back of his head.

"Yes boss?" Tony replied, standing up straighter and looking back at his boss.

"Take Ziva. Find out what was on this thing that was so important Mcgee almost died for it." He hands Tony the flash drive.

"But boss, the whole building was destroyed. Even if there's still a functioning computer, we won't be able to get to it."

Gibbs rolls his eyes at his senior field agent.

"Then find another one!" He turns to leave, but then remembers something. "And by the way, you two aren't off the hook for breaking my rules." And with that he storms out of the room, to get another cup of coffee and make a phone call. He was going to need a lot of strength to make this call to Mcgee's emergency contact, his sister, Sarah.

* * *

"He's going to shoot us," Tony says as he and Ziva descend the stairs to the first floor of the hospital. A million dollars wouldn't get them back in another elevator today.

"If we don't find Dearing, he might do something worse," Ziva adds. She still holds Tony's hand.

Suddenly, Tony's phone rings. He checks the caller ID.

"FBI?" he says skeptically. He flips open the phone.

"Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo."

"DiNozzo, it's Fornell."

"Agent Fornell," Tony answers, surprised. "How can I help you?" Ziva raised her eyebrows questioningly.

"I'm at the Navy Yard. That bastard Dearing really did a number on this one. Where's Gibbs?"

"At the hospital. Agent Mcgee got hurt pretty badly in the blast."

"Huh, I'm sorry to hear that. Doesn't explain why Gibbs isn't answering his phone, though."

"He's got it with him. He might be making a call, though. Dr. Mallard had a heart attack." He could hear the FBI agent take a deep breath on the other end of the line.

"Sheesh, you people really know how to take care of yourselves at NCIS. That's what I was calling to tell Gibbs about. Jurisdiction in the Harper Dearing case has been transferred to the FBI, in light of recent events. I want to keep NCIS in the loop, though."

"That's very kind of you," Tony says, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"I'm also going to need what you have on Dearing." Tony looks down at the flash drive in his hand.

"Of course. Agent David and I will be delivering it personally to the FBI."

"Thanks DiNozzo." And then the line goes dead. Tony turns to Ziva.

"That was Fornell. FBI took over the case."

"Does Gibbs know?" she asks.

"He will soon," he answers as he dials Gibbs' number.

* * *

"Coordinate with Fornell," Gibbs instructs Tony after he's explained the situation.

"On it boss."

"And DiNozzo?"

"Yeah boss?"

"Keep me in the loop. This bastard's mine."

Tony pauses, knowing what this means.

"Will do, boss."

* * *

Tony and Ziva sit awkwardly in old chairs with poor lumbar support in Fornell's office in the Hoover building. They aren't used to having another agency take the lead on their case. Usually Gibbs and Fornell work something out. But this isn't usual.

Fornell walks in with a group of other FBI agents.

"Well, I'd like to start out by thanking Agents DiNozzo and David from NCIS for the information pertaining to the Dearing case," Fornell begins, addressing those in his office.

"In return for NCIS's cooperation, we've agreed to keep them informed about any developments in the case," he continues. As he speaks, Tony notices a younger FBI agent, a probie from the looks of it, staring at Ziva. Staring a little too hard at Ziva. He glares at the young man as he subtly wraps his arm around Ziva's waist. The other man turns red, getting the point, and looks away.

Ziva can hardly help but laugh quietly.

"-we are currently running a trace on all cell phones known to be owned and used by Harper Dearing," Fornell finishes. "As soon as we know-"

"We've got a trace on Dearing's cell!" an FBI agent calls into the office. The man shouts out the location as all the agents in the room, Tony and Ziva included, grab their sidearms and badges and prepare to move out.

"I'm calling Gibbs," Ziva tells Tony, dialing Gibbs' number as they walk out of Fornell's office.

Harper Dearing is theirs.


	4. Chapter 4

**This is the last chapter. Hopefully it's not too cheesy, but I wanted to give them a happy ending of sorts. Thanks so much to everyone who took the time to read this and write all those encouraging reviews! Hope you enjoy!**

**Note: If there are any inaccuracies in regard to locations of anything, I apologize, I wrote this from my memories of the last time I was in DC.**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own any rights to the #1 scripted drama on television. The only thing I own is a laptop.**

**Chapter 4**

The black unmarked cars pull up to the National Mall, where, according to the trace, Harper Dearing has decided to make his last stand. They arrive as the sun has begun to set on the mid-May afternoon in the nation's capitol city. The proximity to the Capitol Building has caused fear of another terrorist attack, causing Homeland Security to get involved. With the amount of FBI and Homeland Security agents, plus two of NCIS's best agents, the likelihood of Dearing getting away this time are next to none.

"Keep your eyes peeled!" Fornell shouts. He barks out instructions to his agents and then goes to coordinate with Homeland Security.

"Do you really think he plans to make an attack on the Capitol, Tony?" Ziva asks as they get out of Fornell's car.

"Doubt it," Tony answers. "He's already made his point. He wants to punish the Navy for his son's death. He's not looking to take down the government, or at least there's nothing in his history that would suggest that."

"Then what is he doing here?" she asks, both to herself and Tony.

"Maybe he wants to make a scene?" he theorizes.

"But he's already done that," she points out. "He blew up half the Navy Yard."

"Well, then maybe Homeland Security's right. Maybe he's not finished," he postulates. Ziva contemplates this. It's a possibility that Harper Dearing is trying to get back at the government; NCIS is a government agency after all. But after her seven years as an investigator, her gut tells her that this isn't the reason Harper Dearing is here. Another thought crosses her mind.

"Or maybe he is," Ziva says. Tony's about to ask her what she means by that when a voice from their earpieces shouts,

"I've got visual on Dearing! He's by the Smithsonian, headed west towards the Washington Monument!"

Tony and Ziva look towards the spot, and can't miss the face they've been staring at on computer and TV screens for a month; Harper Dearing's. They draw their guns and take off towards him.

"Be careful!" Tony warns Ziva; if anything ever happened to her, she's the one thing he knows he can't live without.

"Same to you," she returns. By virtue of her youth and tip top physical shape, and the fact that she goes running every morning, Ziva reaches Dearing before Tony.

" Federal Agents! Freeze!" she shouts at him. Innocent bystanders see the badge and the gun and know that something's wrong; people start panicking. In such a public place, this could spell disaster. Ziva begins to realize that the location Dearing has picked may not have been chosen because of what he planned to do, but because of how he would be caught. He wanted people to see. He wanted it to be public and frightening. He wanted the whole city to know that he'd done this for Evan.

"Put your hands where we can see 'em!" Tony shouts as he catches up to her, placing himself behind Dearing while Ziva stands in front of him. He has nowhere to run. A sly grin creeps across the deranged man's face as he lifts his empty hands in the air.

"NCIS?" he says surprisedly when he notices their badges. "Awfully sorry about your headquarters. But transgressions must be avenged, you know."

"You killed innocent people," Ziva shouts. Dozens of federal agents have by now caught up with them and have formed a strategic position in a circle around Harper Dearing and the two NCIS agents who have apprehended him.

"I did this for Evan!" Dearing shouts. And those are his last words.

The only thing anyone hears is the whir of a bullet and the loud crack as it collides with Dearing's skull. Everyone looks around in shock as Dearing's dead body lies on the ground in a pool of blood. The kill shot had seemingly come from the sky, out of thin air.

_Gibbs_, Tony and Ziva think as they look each other in the eye. There's only one person in the world who could have made that shot. That man was a Marine sniper who always says that there's no such thing as an ex-Marine. That man is Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

* * *

When Tony and Ziva get back to the hospital, Gibbs and Abby are sitting next to McGee's bed. His eyes are open, and they focus on his two partners as they enter the room.

"McGee!" Ziva cries when she sees him and makes her way over to his bed faster than an eye can blink. Tony follows suit.

"Tony, Ziva," McGee croaks out. "You're okay."

"You're the one we're all worried about, McInjured," Tony jokes, then corrects himself, "I mean, Tim." McGee smiles slightly.

"Dearing?" he asks.

"Dead," Gibbs answers. Everyone in the room looks at Gibbs; they know. Dearing was his from the start.

"Good," McGee whispers, before slowly drifting off to sleep.

"Gibbs," Ziva begins, "where-?"

"Roof of the Smithsonian Institution," Gibbs says as he gets up from his chair and heads out the door, "not that anyone needs to know." With that he leaves Tony, Ziva, Abby, and a sleeping McGee alone in the hospital room.

Tony walks over to Ziva and lays his arm around her shoulders, hugging her to him. The worst is over, and Dearing is dead. The only thing left to do is heal and rebuild.

"You think Gibbs forgives us for breaking Rule Number 12?" Tony asks her, still assuming that Abby already knows about them.

"Wait what?" Abby says, shocked. "Rule Number 12? Never date a…oh my god you guys! Really?"

"Gibbs didn't tell you?" Ziva asks, surprised.

"No. Why?"

"No reason," Tony replies. Abby smiles as she leaps up to hug them.

"I knew it! Ever since you got back from Somalia, I knew it! Well, maybe even before then I knew, of course after that whole thing with Ziva and Michael Rivkin and before that with Tony undercover-dating Jeanne Benoit I wasn't sure, and then again with EJ and Ray, but you two still acted so, you know-"

"Abby," Tony interrupts her.

"Yes?"

"Rambling."

"Oh, sorry." Just then McGee groans, the painkillers apparently worn off, and Abby runs to go find a nurse. As soon as she returns, Tony pulls Ziva towards the door.

"Come on. Let's go home."

* * *

Ziva walks into Tony's apartment as he closes the door behind them and looks around. It's been a while since she's been here. Not much has changed, except his DVD collection has certainly grown, and she's pretty sure he's gotten a new, bigger TV.

She suddenly realizes just how exhausted she is, both physically and emotionally. It's dark, and while she's hungry for dinner, she really just wants to lay down and sleep. Instead, she walks over to Tony's couch and sits down.

"You want me to order a pizza?" Tony asks as he locks his sidearm away in a safe placed on a shelf in his living room. Ziva shakes her head. She hasn't spoken a word since they left the hospital. Tony's concerned about her.

"Hey," he murmurs as he sits down next to her on the couch. "What's going on in that pretty little head? You okay?"

It's now that the tears start to fall again as she shakes her head "no", because she isn't okay. Tony wraps his arms around her and pulls her to him.

"It's going to be okay," Tony whispers, "he's dead. He's never coming back. We're going to be okay." But even as he says this, tears start to pool in his eyes, no matter how many times himself that DiNozzo men don't cry. Because he doesn't know that they're going to be okay. Every time he looks behind him at whatever horror he's been through, he thinks there isn't any other way the world can screw him over. And for every time he does this, he turns around to see some knew monster looming in his mist. He can't beat it. They can't beat it. These thoughts scare him, and he holds her tighter still.

"Are we, Tony?" Ziva asks weakly. "Are _we_ going to be okay?"

"We, as in, you and me?" he asks, recalling the conversation they'd had less than a year ago when he'd asked her this same question and she'd said that she didn't mean that.

"Yes," she replies this time. "You and me." She looks up at him with tears in her eyes, desperate tears that cloud her beautiful face. He can't bear to see her like this. He knows this is her breaking point. All the fear she's felt over the past few years, all the walls she's put up because she's been hurt way too many times, like the ones he's put up because he's been hurt way too many times, everything's coming crashing down. The one thing she needs is stability; the one thing _the both_ need is stability.

"Ziva, look at me," Tony says gently as he cups her face in his hand. "I can't promise you much. I can't promise you we won't be dead tomorrow, or in a week from now, or a month or a year. I can't promise you that nothing bad is ever going to happen to us again. I can't promise you that everything's going to go back to being the same as it was, because quite frankly, I'd be lying to you." He pauses and takes a deep breath. "But I can promise you this; as long as I'm alive, nothing's going to touch you that doesn't touch me too. Nobody's going to hurt you without having to deal with me. I can promise you that you're the one person in this world that I cannot live without. If I can promise you one thing, I can promise you stability. I'll be the same man at the end of the day as I was in the beginning. I won't take off and leave you waiting for a silly little phone call. I won't lie to you. And I know that's not much, but that's the best I can do. And I'm doing it for you."

Ziva looks up at Tony as he promises her all these things, all these things that aren't much, but in reality is everything she's ever wanted. Tony's promising her something permanent, the one thing that can't be taken away; his heart. It's everything she's ever dreamed of. But there's that part of her that keeps telling herself that she can't take it, that there's a reason she can't have this happiness.

"Tony, I, I…can't," she says helplessly. He looks at her confusedly.

"You can't what?" he asks.

"I…I don't deserve any of that."

"Ziva, what are you talking about?"

"I don't deserve any of those things, Tony!" she shouts. "I've done some terrible things, Tony. I've killed people." Tony looks at her sadly.

"It's part of the job, Ziva. I've shot my fair share of bad guys too. And with Mossad, you were doing your job, following orders…"

"No, Tony. You don't understand."

"Then make me."

Suddenly, she's afraid, even more afraid than she's been all day. What if he hates her? What if he thinks she's a monster? What if he decides he doesn't love her after all? But she loves him, and she has to tell him now.

"I…I killed Ari," she says feebly. Tony shakes his head, sure that this is a misunderstanding, that today's trauma has just brought up old memories she's kept suppressed.

"No, Ziva. Gibbs shot Ari." She shakes her head.

"Gibbs…filled out a false report…" she continues, trying to convince him. "I killed Ari. I killed my own brother," she whispers, her voice breaking. And finally Tony understands.

"Oh Ziva," he whispers, hugging her to his chest. She buries her face in his dress shirt as she sobs and mumbles weak, meaningless apologies, and he rubs her back comfortingly. He repeats her name over and over again. "You did what you had to do." She nods against his chest. "I can't possibly blame you for that. You saved Gibbs' life. What you did seven years ago…that's the past. You have to move on. You can't keep blaming yourself for all those things from the past. I've done it, and…you can't. Trust me, you can't."

Ziva sniffles.

"Then, you don't hate me? You don't think I'm a monster?" she asks softly.

Tony sputters.

"Why would you ever think that I would? Ziva, I told you that I love you. I meant it. That's never going to change, do you understand me?"

"Yes, Tony," she answers, a small smile creeping across her lips. "I love you too. And I mean it."

Tony smiles lovingly down at Ziva as he leans his face down to her's and kisses her tenderly. Ziva wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him back.

* * *

Gibbs turns around at the sound of two sets of footsteps making their way down his basement stairs. Unsurprisingly, Tony and Ziva stand in his basement, hands intertwined, their eyes pleading with him.

"What do you two want?" he sighs.

"Your blessing," Ziva replies shyly.

"And what makes you think you need it?"

"Rule Number 12, boss," Tony answers. "We know we're breaking your rules."

"Damn right you are."

"But that's not going to stop us from being together," Tony continues.

"Never thought it would, DiNozzo." All three of them stand in silence.

"So what's the verdict?" Ziva asks, for once getting the expression right. Gibbs takes a deep breath.

"Rule 51: Sometimes, you're wrong." Tony and Ziva look at each other, then at Gibbs.

"Does this mean…?" Ziva asks hesitantly.

"Go on," Gibbs says, "get out of my basement. Go have dinner, or see a movie, or whatever it is you kids do these days." Tony and Ziva's eyes light up.

"Thanks boss," Tony says gratefully, before he and Ziva turn and make their way up the stairs, knowing that they have the blessing of the man who has always been like a father to them.

It starts to rain as they reach Tony's car (he'd gone back for it after grabbing his other set of car keys from his apartment). Tony goes to open the passenger door for Ziva, but she stops him.

"What?" he asks as she moves closer to him.

"Nothing," she replies as she wraps her arms around his waist and kisses him.

Tony smiles into the kiss as he pulls her close to him. And so they stay, kissing, in the rain, knowing that no matter happens from now on, they will have each other.

**Fin.**


End file.
